


Mayhem

by platinumnib



Category: Mayhem (Band)
Genre: Black Metal, Historical???, M/M, Suicide, metal, true story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:41:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21819865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platinumnib/pseuds/platinumnib
Summary: “He found Dead… dead, in the bed” - VargAn attempt at a modernist short story.
Relationships: Dead | Per Yngve Ohlin/Øystein Aarseth
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Mayhem

“Do you need anything else, mister?”

He looked a gloomy fellow with that pallid skin and the mop of black hair hiding half his face. The sort of person daddy would say to watch out for on the streets. But it was her turn to man the store and with how slow business had been of late, she couldn’t refuse anybody. 

He didn’t answer, only dropped a handful of coins and crumpled bills on the counter.

“Um… it’s only ninety krone,” she said.

He snatched the camera from her hands and nearly threw the door off its hinges on the way out. The tinny old chime was still ringing, swaying this way and that long after his car was out of sight. Whatever business the man was running back to, she hoped it was far away from their little store. 

She’d only learn - and wish she hadn’t - about the whole business upon seeing the evening news, but there’d been a death not too far away. Oystein was off to immortalize it. 

Pelle had already died once before. A mob of school bullies had kicked him until his spleen had ruptured and, for a moment, he had passed away in his hospital bed.

Ever since, he’d longed to go again.

Ever since, the rank smell of death had never been the least bit repulsive. He craved it, sought it out. Whether it was that of a stiff fox on the side of the road or a broken-headed sparrow he’d find lying around the property, the only thing that could excite him was a carcass.

That and the music.

The boys had found it a bit queer in the beginning, but they shouldn’t have, really. The first time they’d ever heard of him was when he’d sent his demo tape all the way over from Sweden - alongside a darling little mouse, gutted and tied to a little cross.

His joys in life. Maddening screeches out of the great black nothing and the stench of blood. His blood now.

He tried to say whatever, but little more than a grunt came out, a guttural gurgle; a ruby red spray misted the parquet. His throat was cut too shallow. He reached for a rag but it only served to drain more of his blood all over the floorboards.

Damn the cleanup, it wasn’t his business anymore.

Pelle grabbed onto the corner of the desk, straining, lifting himself onto the chair. His trembling fingers fumbled for a pencil, a piece of paper. He scribbled down a semblance of explanation, and by way of a title, he couldn’t find anything better than:

_ Excuse the blood. _

He eyed the rifle by his bed, Oystein’s rifle. It only ever served when he was trying to drop a cat now and again. They’d get away every time, but he wouldn’t miss his own eye, would he?

It took a great deal of time and effort to drag himself onto the mattress. His special shell was under the pillow. An ordinary shotgun shell, really, pellets of lead encased in bright plastic and brass, but he had kept it aside all year for the task at hand.

He snapped the gun shut and slowly brought the barrel to bear, right against his forehead. His blood-soaked palm wrapped around the grip. It was just as the note said.

_ I’m not a human. This is just a dream and soon I will awake. _

His thumb twitched.

Once the echo had died down, silence returned until Oystein’s car puttered up the driveway. The house looked as he’d left it that morning, cold and ancient, shrouded in the previous winter’s leftover fog.

He knocked.

“Dead, it’s Oystein.”

No answer came. He rammed his fist into the door again and again, shouting a string of imprecations.

“Dead! Dead, open up!”

Dead might not have heard him from the coffin where he slept, but if he knocked any harder he’d punch a hole through the wood.

It was no use. He circled the house and saw an open window on the first floor. Dead’s bedroom. He might as well fetch a ladder and kick the jackass up while he was at it. 

When he made it in, though, Pelle was asleep for good, right by his own brains.

There was more gore on the floor than he thought a body could ever hold. The smell of it all wafted up as the blood cooled and curdled. Before he knew it, Oystein was two rooms over, retching his lunch into the bowl and hoping beyond hope the entire thing was somehow a twisted prank.

It wasn’t. He’d left the madman alone one time too many, to run laps around his own sick mind… with a gun propped against the wall and a knife handy on the desk.

He stumbled back into the room. Unsurprisingly, nothing had moved. Dead was on his side, his face - the face of Mayhem - nearly intact, the eyes trained right at him.  _ You did this to me _ , they said.  _ Thank you _ . Oystein touched the corpse’s hand: cold, with a slight bit of give to the skin. Every hair on his body stood up at once and he recoiled in horror.

Horror; the scene before him was the purest, most organic manifestation of it. No painting, no movie, no music they’d ever written could compare with Dead, lying peacefully amid his own insides with bits of his skull and the tools of his mutilation scattered beside him.

Horror. The same horror Mayhem peddled in every one of their songs.

The soulless voice had left the world to see what lay beyond and Oystein - no, Euronymous - would force upon everyone the darkest emotions humans were capable of experiencing. Yes, that was just it.

With a picture of this, Mayhem would flip the world upside down.

Euronymous needed a camera.


End file.
